Research On Feather Pecking Development Of Chicks Under Different Environment

The feather-pecking is one kind of non-battle unusual behaviour that the birds strike and pluck companion's feather.The investigation has showed that many birds have this kind of behaviour. Once the feather-pecking addiction appears,it will spread quickly in the entire group.The prevalence rate may reach above 80%and the mortality rate is approximately 50%sometimes.At present,many researches have been focused on the lack of malnutrition,the bad breeding condition,and stress,but the factor of behaviour that is effected by environment has beeen rarely known.From the point of view of behaviour,in order to investigate the effect of sandy condition and barren condition,different colors,the interactition between the chicks and the different time's stimulations outside the chick's fether-pecking behaviour,this research took the chicks as the experimental objects and investigation that the effect of the early conditional sensitive time and the condition imprinting characteristic,the effect of color stimulation at different times on the chicks' feather-pecking behaviour and the effect of interaction in the group on the feather-pecking behaviour's development.Different numerary Hailanbai chicks were selected in the three experiments and each experiment lasted 14 weeks.Experiments 1Experimental design The experimental design included two kinds of raising condition (sandy condition and barren condition) and three sensitive periods of early conditional experience (between 0 to 2 weeks,0 to 4 weeks and 0 to 6 weeks).Result The feather-pecking times of the chick that raised in the sandy condition is higher than those that raised in the barren condition,but feather-pecking correlative behaviour times were higher in sandy condition.The chick can also have the feather-pecking behaviour in sandy condition,but it's reduced.When breeding condition was changed at the 3rd week,the behaviour change tendency is similar to the tendency in new condition,so the effect of changing breeding condition is remarkable.When breeding condition was changed at the 5th and 7th week,the behaviour change tendency is similar to the tendency in the original condition,so the effect of changing breeding condition is not remarkable.Conclusion(1) Sandy condition can reduce the feather-pecking behaviour relatively to the barren condition,but cannot change it completely.(2) The most effective imprinting time for feather-pecking behaviour of chicks was the first four weeks after being borned.The environmental conditions seemed not affect the behaviour of object-pecking and staring at object.The results also suggested that the early environmental experience could only modify feather-pecking at older age, but could not completely change it at all.Experiments 2Experimental design The experimental design included two kinds of raising condition (sandy condition and barren condition),four time points to begin color stimulation(0 week age,3 weeks age,5 weeks age,and 9 weeks age),and four colors(red,yellow,blue,and green).Result Under green stimulating,the chick's object-pecking behaviour is the most,the feather-pecking is the least.Under blue stimulating,the chick's feather-pecking,being pecked behaviour and stating at object behaviour are the most.Under red stimulating,the chick's feather-pecking and being pecked behaviour are the least,the ground-pecking is the most;the yellow stimulating is not remarkable to the chick's feather-pecking and the correlative behaviour. As the time(0 week age,3 weeks age,5 weeks age,9 weeks age) of color stimulating is later,the feather-pecking,being-pecked,ground-pecking behaviour are less,but the object-pecking behaviour is more.Conclusion(1) green and red stimulating can reduce the feather-pecking or being pecked behaviour by "the shift" principle,but can not eliminate the feather-pecking behaviour.The blue stimulating may increase the feather-pecking behaviour and the yellow stimulating doesn't have obvious effect on feather-pecking behaviour.(2) The imprnting time of young chicken should end some time between 3 week age to 5 week age.Experiments 3Experimental design The experimental design included two kinds of raising condition (sandy condition and barren condition),and five kinds of communities structures(1 young chicken, 3 young chickens,5 young chickens,7 young chickens and 9 young chickens).Result In the community,with the decreasing number of the other object chicken and the increasing number of chick,the mean of object-pecking,ground-pecking,stating at object reduce, but the feather-pecking behaviour increases.In the experimental group,but the chick's feeding behaviour increases.Conclusion(1) Increasing the number of young chicken,the chick's interaction may enhance and the occurrence frequency of feather-pecking behaviour is more.(2) In the community, increasing the number of young chicken appropriately may increase the feeding behaviour,but can not determine the change of the foraging quantity.